Paris mayor proposes high-rise changes to city skyline

The mayor of Paris yesterday launched a controversial plan to overturn a ban on high-rise buildings and construct six towers in the capital.

By Henry Samuel in Paris

3:14PM BST 08 Jul 2008

Bertrand Delanoë, the popular Socialist mayor, said that buildings were needed to ease the city's housing shortage, despite the fact that a survey last year found almost two-thirds of Parisians were against relaxing the rules.

It is currently forbidden to build higher than 37 metres in the capital, and no skyscraper has been built for 18 years. Parisians often complain about the Tour Montparnasse, an ugly tower that blights the central Paris skyline.

However, Mr Delanoë told a council meeting: "We cannot forbid ourselves from looking up. Parisians are reticent about the idea... but a public official's responsibility is to let himself be guided by a sense of public interest rather than polls," he said.

The council yesterday voted in favour of studying the plan, while Parisians will be allowed to have their say early next year through a "citizens' conference".

Among the plans is a 200 metre pyramidal tower next to the Porte de Versailles, in south-west Paris, which would include a four-star hotel and a conference and business centre. However, housing projects, such as by the Porte des Batignolles in north-west Paris, would not rise above 50 metres. However

Paris' deputy mayor, Denis Baupin, a green, slammed the proposal as part of a battle of egos between Mr Delanoë, who wants to run for President in 2012, and Nicolas Sarkozy – the man he wants to replace.

Mr Sarkozy last month launched his project for a Greater Paris, in which he has asked ten top architects to dream up the face of the capital over the next 20 years. He has previously criticised the mayor for turning Paris into a "museum".

"Because Sarkozy builds towers in La Defense [a business district just outside Paris], Delanoë wants some in Paris. This is bling-bling architecture. We've already got one tower that adds to the city's radiance: the Eiffel Tower. No need for another one," Mr Baupin told Le Parisien.

He said high-rises by nature consumed more power than smaller buildings. Mr Delanoë promised they would be "models of sustainable development."